Convicted man Frank Lee Smith died of cancer on Death Row before exoneration

April 12, 2011|By Paula McMahon, Sun Sentinel

More than 10 years after DNA proved Frank Lee Smith was wrongly convicted of raping and murdering an 8-year-old Fort Lauderdale girl, the lawsuit accusing Broward Sheriff's detectives of framing him is finally scheduled to go to a jury later this year.

The suit alleges that a group of rogue homicide detectives operated as a criminal enterprise that faked or coerced incriminating statements from mentally ill and mentally-challenged men in high-profile murder cases that resulted in at least four innocent men being sent to prison. The detectives' bosses turned a blind eye and didn't investigate the problem, the lawsuit claims.

Whatever the outcome of the case, it will be too late for Smith: he died of pancreatic cancer on Death Row in January 2000, just months before forensic science exonerated him. He was 52.

Still, Frank Lee Smith's sister, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of his estate, hopes some measure of justice will be delivered for her brother, who spent nearly 15 years in prison for horrific crimes he didn't commit.

"I can't even fathom in my mind being on Death Row for something I didn't do," Virginia Smith said in an interview. "He talked about the injustice, the suffering, the abuse he suffered while he was locked up."

Smith's attorneys are seeking an unspecified amount of damages that his sister hopes will let her pay off the balance on his funeral bill, erect a headstone at his grave and set up a foundation to help other people imprisoned for things they didn't do.

While Smith, of Fort Lauderdale, was wrongly imprisoned for breaking into Shandra Whitehead's home in April 1985 and raping and fatally wounding her, Eddie Lee Mosley, the serial killer who was later identified as the real rapist and murderer, remained free to wreak his deadly toll.

DNA testing in 2000 and 2001 linked Mosley to eight Broward murders, including Shandra's, and he is the only suspect in 10 more slayings and dozens of rapes. He was found incompetent to stand trial in 1988 and judges have kept him locked up in state psychiatric care since then.

Smith's lawsuit accuses former Broward Sheriff's detectives of lying, manipulating witnesses, tampering with evidence and fabricating evidence to pin the crime on Smith and keep him on Death Row after one of the witnesses recanted.

Former Broward sheriffs Nick Navarro and Ken Jenne are being sued in their official roles, and former detectives Richard Scheff and Phillip Amabile, are being sued personally. They have all since left the agency.

The Smith case is famous because it was the first in the nation where someone was exonerated by DNA after dying in prison. It galvanized anti-death penalty activists around the world and created misgivings among many who supported executions.

The civil suit is part of the continuing fallout from a series of exonerations involving the Sheriff's Office, which has seen several of its high-profile murder cases overturned by forensic science or other methods.

In addition to Smith, DNA cleared Jerry Frank Townsend who served 21 years in prison and Anthony Caravella, who served more than 25 years for a case investigated by the Broward Sheriff's Office and Miramar police. On appeal, a federal judge found Timothy Brown "actually innocent" of murdering a sheriff's deputy in 1990.

Smith was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, while the other three convicted but subsequently exonerated men had low IQs. Some of them made incriminating statements and attorneys allege the detectives either coerced the vulnerable suspects, two of whom were juveniles, into confessing or made up the statements.

If the Smith lawsuit isn't settled before going to trial in early September, it promises to be an intriguing trial.

The witness list reads like a who's who of Broward's legal and law enforcement communities, including recently retired Broward Circuit Judge Robert Carney who handled the prosecution before he was appointed to the bench, sitting U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas who took it to trial and a 12-0 jury vote for execution, Navarro, who was sheriff when the crime occurred and Jenne, who was in office when Smith's wrongful conviction was uncovered.

It could also prove expensive for the Sheriff's Office, which chose to settle and pay $2 million in a similar civil suit filed by Jerry Frank Townsend, who also served time for Mosley's crimes. Another lawsuit is expected to be filed on behalf of Caravella.

Smith's attorneys, James Green and Michael Wrubel, allege in court records that Smith was framed by detectives who "conspired to make an innocent citizen look guilty by manipulating unsophisticated witnesses, then twisting, exaggerating and misrepresenting material facts, and by fabricating other evidence to obtain wrongful convictions and the death penalty against Frank Lee Smith."